February 23, 2006

I have been so busy lately! Sorry I have not been up to date with the daily class work and homework. The homework is always listed on the calendar on the classroom page.

Thursday, February 23
We are taking quiz 12 today.
The ad techniques tabs in the magazine are due today for a grade.
The students will present their findings.


Tuesday, February 21
On Tuesday, we spent most of the class time discussing essays. We read 5 Earrings essays. They were examples to show how I scored their essays. We started with an essay that would score a 1 out of 4 on the State scale. We then read some 2's. I wanted them to see what is NOT acceptable for the State. In order to pass the DSTP, the writing score must be a 3. I then showed them the difference between a 2 and a 3. I hope the doing this will inspire them to put a little more effort into their writing. Finally, I showed them a 4+. This essay was almost a 5. A 5 paper is one that just blows you a away.

Wednesday, February 22
On Wednesday, we studied marketing. We started with a discussion about impressions per million. We studied a chart that shows how many impressions per million a company received and the money spent on the ad campaign. What we learned was some companies spent $20M and the received 20M impressions. That means they spent $1 per impression. Other companies spent less and got more for their money. Others spent as much as $4.40 per impression, but they did get 99M impressions. We discussed if that is worth it.

That led to a discussion about modern marketing techniques. That data was from 1984. The techniques we studied were buzz marketing and viral marketing. We looked at a website called www.pheratones.com. This site and product are totally fake. We read a New York Times article on the company that created the campaign. They only spent $250,000 on the marketing, but they basically lied to everyone in order to create a buzz about the fake site. Then they revealed who they really were later. I hope this topic was not to racy for some of you, but I am a father, and I always try to treat the students as I would treat my kids.

Sorry for writing so much. I wanted to keep you informed.